Brush up on some great literature before taking in these productions

By David Rosenberg

Published 11:30 am, Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Ah, how great literature enriches, and makes us think about, our lives. No, you don't have to know Anton Chekhov to enjoy Christopher Durang's delightful, dyspeptic, affectionate homage, "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike." Nor do you have to be a student of Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" to cotton to Samuel D. Hunter's hypnotic, beautifully acted "The Whale." But it helps.

"I hope you're not going to make Chekhov references all day," says Vanya to his adopted sister Sonia at the beginning of Durang's comedy feast. Named after Chekhov characters because their parents were active in community theater, Vanya and Sonia are visited by their sister Masha, a famous actress with another Chekhovian name, towing her dense boy-toy Spike.

Complications include a costume party to which Masha goes as Snow White, Vanya as one of the seven dwarfs and Sonia as the evil queen before she turned ugly witch. Then there's the reading of Vanya's play, which he imagines is the one Trigorin wrote in "The Seagull." And, oh yes, there's a cherry orchard of sorts (it has a mere nine or ten trees).

Will the predictions of the cleaning woman, Cassandra, come true? Will pretty next-door neighbor Nina, coincidentally sharing the name of another Chekhov character, upend Masha's plans? Will Masha sell the family house? Will Sonia find a boyfriend? ("Life happens," says Masha. "Not here it doesn't," counters Sonia.)

Durang's gift for poignant hilarity has never been more in evidence. And the superb cast matches his mad swings between silly and sad. As Masha, Sigourney Weaver, having the time of her life, is positively giddy. As Sonia, the unmatchable Kristine Nielsen nails a phone call that, like her life, swings from fear to puzzlement to triumph.

David Hyde Pierce is dry as the brooding Vanya, musing on the sorry state of the world. His tirade on our inhuman electronic dependency ("Our lives are disconnected") is delivered with the force of a criminal finally let out of jail.

The other actors are as skillful, from Billy Magnussen as the humpy Spike, Genevieve Angelson as the trusting Nina and Shalita Grant as the prescient Cassandra. On David Korins' lovely interior-exterior country setting, under Nicholas Martin's impeccable and trusting direction, Durang's characters play out their delectable dance of life.

The setting for "The Whale" is the polar opposite. In his messy Idaho apartment, Charlie, a 500-pound behemoth, is dying of congestive heart failure. Confined to couch or walker, he is eating himself to death, comforted by well-meaning visitors.

Liz is the sister of Charlie's deceased boyfriend, Alan; Elder Thomas is a young Mormon missionary out to save Charlie's soul; Mary is Charlie's angry former wife; Ellie is their bitter, cruel daughter.

Charlie, an online instructor of expository writing, wants to uncover what caused Alan to give up on life. Was it something said at a sermon given by Alan's Mormon father, paralleling the hell-and-damnation sermon on Jonah and the whale in Melville?

More pressing is Charlie's desire to reconnect with estranged daughter Ellie. Pushing her to be honest about herself, to care, he treasures her essay on "Moby-Dick" that claims "the author is trying to save us from his own sad story, just for a little while."

This is a tightly focused work of humanity and understanding. At its center is a towering performance by Shuler Hensley. A gentle giant, he imparts compassion to others in his orbit, as Ishmael does in Melville's tale. Playwright Hunter has an ear for how people speak and react in moments of crisis.

Under Davis McCallum's direction, "The Whale" never loses sight of inner hurts and fears beneath outward appearances. Like "Vanya," literary allusions reinvigorate reality and unite us with our empathic selves.